With the month long heat wave.
“It’s summer what do you expect of course it’s going to be hot”
It was an abnormally cold and wet winter. Climate deniers here are basically saying “shit happens”
“There was climate change when the Vikings were around so it’s not as clear cut as people make out.”
In my country we’ve had the opposite of a heat wave, the worst summer I can remember with rain almost every day and temperatures barely making it above 20 degrees. He says that this shows the planet isn’t heating up and jokes that we need more carbon.
UK maybe?
Yep
Probably not, it’s rainy at the moment but we already had some drought months in may/june
I think we had a week or two didn’t we? Never seemed to get much past spring.
They compare it to heatwaves from the 1970s…
Boomers never left the 70s
It’s all a hoax, it’s not a big deal, it’s just hot out.
My family is from Iowa, where they’ve had record breaking storms 3 out of the last 5 years, heat waves lasting longer than ever in history, record cold, and to top it off, wildfire smoke for the first time ever. (Note that this is after they made fun of Cali for being Cali and being on fire). No, none of these events have registered as connected in any way.
Right on par with the old, “Hurr durr of course it’s hot, it’s July!!!1!1!!1!” comments. These are the same folks who, when faced with a polar vortex in December or January, proudly and obnoxiously crow about “global warming.”
Their tiny brains just can’t comprehend the difference between weather and climate. I have had meager success explaining that climate change results in worse extremes, colds get colder,hots get hotter, and storms get stronger, but even then it’s only some of them that actually listen. The rest are like “I’ve got it allllll figured out” and refuse to listen, then drive off in their 0.7mpg Ford Tahoe Super Manly Man Maker to go to the grocery store 8 blocks away.
It’s the hottest July in recorded history. Likely the hottest for tens of thousands of years. There hasn’t been below average temperatures since the eighties, no not even that winter that you thought was quite cold at the time. Polar vortices are supposed to happen at, you know, the poles.
Nothing will ever convince these people. They are immune to evidence and argument.
Worse. I think many are immune to observation.
logic will never convince them because they aren’t arguing from a position of logic. It’s about conforming to the beliefs required to be part of their tribe and/or protecting themselves from coming to terms with the harsh realities of climate change. It’s reactionary against a challenge to their beliefs.
You would need to first convince them to consider that their respected authorities could be wrong. But within this reactionary mindset, being wrong is disgraceful. So unless they lose respect for their leaders or manage to shift away from believing fallibility is disgraceful, I don’t know if they can be convinced.
You can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into.
This may be one of the most insightful things I’ve ever read or heard. Are you quoting someone, or should I quote you?
It’s attributed to Jonathan Swift, 1721
Awesome, thank you!
logic will never convince them to consider
That’s kind of why I’m asking, the month long heat wave should be eye opening.
I think you’d need to start by getting them to admit that the heat is a problem without mentioning climate change. Don’t use any of the buzz words they’ve been taught how to respond to. Just try to get them to have a conversation where they have to come up with their own answers.
In fact, maybe don’t even start off with anything related to the topics they’ve been told what to think about. Ask about something they care about more directly that isn’t on their party’s agenda. You’d need to keep at it long enough for them to start understanding you’re not their enemy, which could be anywhere from a few hours to a few weeks/months, depending on how deeply entrenched they are. Then, start trying to work towards the lesser issues their authority doesn’t bring up often but has expressed an opinion on. Basically, you need to de-indoctrinate them.
If you can get them to talk about an issue without recognizing immediately that they’re in danger of contradicting their chosen authorities, then slowly transition towards getting them to talk about more and more “dangerous” topics, you might help them to bridge that disconnect and start thinking critically about the key issues.
That all said, You’ll have an easier time working with people who haven’t been deeply entrenched in an authoritarian ideology. The less developed their beliefs, the easier it’ll be to guide them towards thinking about their beliefs critically. That’s one reason it’s so important to teach critical thinking in primary/secondary schools.
Nope. Many have had the urge to ask questions literally beaten out of them in their youth.
Perhaps if you could separate them from their social group long enough. Send them on a three-month trip, preferably to another country. Have them spend most of their time with people who deal with these problems on a daily basis.
maybe if you can convince them that global warming helps out joe biden they will be against it.
You see it’s a conspiracy, Sleepy Joe wants us to keep using fossil fuels so the liberals will vote him back it so it looks like he’s doing something! The last thing he wants is for us to stop using fossil fuels! I bought an EV today just to spite him
most electric plants use coal or natural gas. EV isnt any “cleaner” than a small gas engine.
They’ve run the numbers a long time ago. Even using the dirtiest electricity state in the US, EVs come out ahead of combustion engines. And we’ve come a long ways since then too.
The biggest difference is even when using dirty energy source electrice vehicles are more efficient at using the electricity from the dirty sources than gas engines are at burning gasoline directly
We’re on nuclear, solar, and hydro where I am, something like 90-95% of my energy is clean. Demand your local energy go green!
I feel like I don’t hear from them much anymore. Maybe it’s because I’ve managed to finally cut all of them out of my life. Or maybe it’s because they’ve realized that even the people who do accept that climate change is real still aren’t going to do anything about it because even the softest, most hands-off forms of mitigation would be too disruptive to capitalism.
My dad: “the earth goes through natural temperature cycles, I’ve got some good scientific sources who say it’s all natural and climate change is just scaremongering”
Guess that’s another topic along with the EU, immigration, COVID, vaccination that I can’t talk about with my family.
Makes it hard and frustrating to continue to have a relationship at times.
“Amazing dad, do these cycles usually happen in the span of a lifetime?” I don’t expect you to say that, I already know his answer. It’s whatever Fox News told him to say
Oh I did. He just has “evidence from reliable sources” to say it’s all a hoax.
I do not have climate change deniers as friends because idiots cannot be my friend.
By now it’s pretty obvious what is happening and what probably will happen. The ones unable to understand will inevitably have a hard time and a lower chance of passing on their genes which is fine by me.
As an idiot, I welcome idiots to be my friends
but idiots can be self aware enough to know their limitations and when to defer to experts
Idiots who think they know everything are the worst. Even we idiots don’t want to be associated with them.
Understanding has nothing to do with a person’s chances of survival or their children’s chances. The biggest determinants will be wealth/poverty and location. Plenty of ordinary people who understand perfectly well what’s going on will suffer and die, while fools who can buy their way to a safer place will survive.
Hi I’m an idiot and would like to be your friend
THEY SAID NO!!! GET LOST
You wanna be friends?
Yes absolutely. I need a second to get through Zombies Ate My Neighbors.
Same as 20 years ago — “the fact that they want me to give up my truck and Nestle gets to dump plastic in the ocean proves it’s all liberal bullshit.”
U ´꓃ ` U
So how can climate change be real and the overwhelming majority of emissions be from production and the solution be to cut emissions at the point of consumption where an incredible minority of those emissions are?
Truly the american way. What? Give up a tiny bit of convenience to help other people?? Freedom! Liberty!
The true arrogance of the average American is driving their big pickup and thinking they deserve to destroy the planet.
I mean, it would be nice if Nestle stopped dumping plastic in the ocean. But them doing that is obviously not a reason to do nothing to help.
That’s my frustration. So many people in my life are so close to getting it. They see the effect, but they’re just dismissive of any cause that would cost them comfort.
Don’t know any anymore. I am a passionate debater and educator on climate science so I either convince them or they distance themselves from me.
“Eh they’re already fixing it.”
“I’m following the real scientist. They’re called climatists and they just all banded together and said ‘stop all this bullshit reporting’ to the mainstream media!”
My soul left my body and I died.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
I thought this was basically their stance the whole time. People thought it wasn’t real at all?
It’s like religion people who believe the Earth is only 6000 years old or something. They know about Darwin’s Theory of Evolution… but I’m like, dude, that’s done by walking around and measuring plants, animals, insects. We have microscopes and DNA now. We know the DNA difference between two kinds of birds. We know how a single cell from female and male come together and follow DNA patterns to create the whole animal, even humans! They just won’t accept that DNA was after Darwin’s time and proved he was right!
Cut down all the trees and put roads and buildings everywhere since year 1800. Start burning whale oil and then petrol oil as fast as you can. Make everything powered by oil. it’s burning, like burning wood at a campfire. Do you see the smoke and gas? Do you think a car is not burning petrol? A power plant isn’t burning petrol? Fire! It burns carbon products, wood, uses oxygen. It makes carbon dioxide. “A typical passenger vehicle emits about 4.6 metric tons of CO2 per year.”
Here, can’t we take something like a fish tank and put a burning candle in it, and show you the smoke and gas it creates.
Oh, they are dumping pollution into the river and you think the town downstream isn’t getting poisoned? Who is the town upstream from where you live.
But the advertising and marketing of the oil companies ‘inform them’. You can’t convince them how fire works, making smoke and gas. And start counting up how many fires you see driving around on the roads of the world, and how many power plants are burning petrol, etc.
Advertising and marketing can convince them of anything, the stuff they believe just because snazzy presentation.
I had a coworker ten fifteen years ago who said basically “God’s doing it and it’s a sign of the end times.” This dude was a trained engineer.
It’s always amazing to me how people can be experts in a certain field of science, and then go on to deny other fields of science. I have many coworkers like that as a software engineer.
It’s not that hard to understand. There is no reason to assume that someone that spent 4-8 years studying computers is going to be an expert in physics or other sciences. That person is an expert in computers and nothing else unless they studied it.
The problem arises tho when people who are an expert in one field or subject use that as validation to them that they are smart. Therefore any other topic they discuss makes them an expert and so you can never have a real discussion with them because in their mind they are always right.
I find it is hard to understand. Because now we all carry around a smartphone and can look at Wikipedia and a variety of other sources. On almost any topic, it is accurate with citations. And it really does not take that many people to create accurate sources of information. Truth basically is singular, you can detail it backwards and forwards. We have public libraries full of accurate information.
What I do understand is that oil companies spend a massive amount of money on branding, marketing, sports, etc. The information people believe isn’t just random theories against how fire burning produces CO2 and warms up the Earth. They very specifically believe things the marketing and advertising tells them to. It’s a basic business formula to spend x percentage of all your income on marketing. It works across every field, for every $100 income you put $3 right back into keeping your customer “educated” from a voice outside the product material (such as product placement in a film, or a sponsorship message between news stories).
I find people will sell their souls for free songs, free websites, free TV channels. They just don’t see how artificial changes in group behavior can become popular through marketing/advertising. They can’t face that marketing companies measure increases in sales, and sped precise amounts of money marketing a hamburger shop that everyone knows is there, but still the signal directs customers to change their choice of meals.
Even religions that are not their own. It’s taught. They can’t face up to the fact that a person who is raised with no religion does not believe the book they believe. And if you take them to a country with a different religion or human language, they can’t make the connection that it is all learned.
I can understand not having a skill from experience. Spending 8 years to learn how to do surgery correctly. But there really isn’t a reason for humanity to poison itself with marketing and advertising that climate change isn’t real - just to keep a specific set of billionaires in power.
We could pay for our TV shows, songs, films, website. Not poison our minds with falsehoods in advertising. That chain hamburger shop doesn’t need to remind us it is there, if it’s good, we will go get a burger. It’s the motivation systems of misinformation that seems the hardest thing to understand and change. People can be incredibly attracted to things they find “funny” or “odd”. humanity can be sold all kinds of products that are not good quality or even cheaper… just by branding/marketing/logo things. I can’t understand why people haven’t had ENOUGH of it. Like even the Reddit API change was about adding more marketing and cutting out apps that didn’t do Reddit advertising.
It used to really boggle my mind too (I met a young earth creationist for the first time in my life, he was a network engineer), but then I realized a lot of people just look at techy type jobs purely to make money, not because they are science and tech nerds.
Many people go towards software engineer/computer science type stuff because that’s where the money is. And honestly there is not much there that really would change someones ideology - nothing about sorting algorithms, processor opcodes, schedulers, etc etc really challenges someone’s views - just tools to learn to make that paycheck. So a young earther learns what a packet is and how it gets routed from point a to point b - what exactly would challenge his view that the bible is literal in any of that? Those kinds of people don’t really have any curiosity about the world and are not looking for any answers
That’s the crux of Faith: maintaining it in the face of evidence to the contrary.
I used to work with a young earth Christian programmer. He was a great Dev and a genuinely good person. He also kept his faith to himself and only takes about it when we directly asked him.
They literally are saying that it is like this every summer. The other excuse they use is that we shouldn’t be forced to do something when there are countries that pollute worse. The other argument they provide is that climate change policy affects poor people the most, so they claim that it would be unfair to them if we enacted any of it.
